


Dawn is Behind the Corner

by FelixKamov



Category: Blackadder
Genre: Airplanes, Don't Have to Know Canon, Gen, I don't have this planned out so be ready for anything I suppose, I'm Bad At Tagging, Period Typical Attitudes, World War I, at least i hope not, the tags here are more limiting than I thought they would be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25637734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelixKamov/pseuds/FelixKamov
Summary: It's only a month and a week before the Passchandaele Offensive, and Blackadder and co. will have to come up with a truly cunning plan if they wish to dodge the Big Push. In the mean time, however, they're forced to confront other thoughts as well.
Kudos: 1





	Dawn is Behind the Corner

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: The characters are property of the BBC, and were created by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton. They are in no way mine.  
> This is in no way, shape or form meant to be social commentary on war.
> 
> Well, I hope I'll do the series justice. It was definitely one of my faves growing up.

It was a cold, foggy day- June 23rd 1917, and the guns had all fallen silent in and around Ypres. A crowd of about a thousand was marching through the town in mourning, donned in black and whispering various phrases in English, Latin and another language that was incomprehensible to the outside observers.

The occasional “oof” and “au” could be heard from members of the crowd; the shelling had plucked the cobblestones out of the ground. The sidewalks were reserved for Belgian patrols, although they weren’t in much better shape.

One person that stuck out from the crowd was a strapping young white coat-wearing doctor from the rough end of the army hospitals. He was also walking, albeit with a cane, and holding a lute in the other hand. The large white coat he had on was making him sweat more than usual, and he’d occasionally stop to wipe his face with a handkerchief. He kept on walking with the crowd until he diverged to one of the taller buildings in the town- the local printing house, which was also used by the British Army to print its local wartime newspaper.

The newspaper detailed the local events of the previous day- although he mainly picked it up to see the global situation, which somewhat comforted him- the British were advancing in Mesopotamia, and the Russians were also making progress on the Eastern Front, however small it was. Perhaps these could finally turn the tide? Who was to say. 

He turned over to the local section, and saw no mention of the current event. It was instead filled with statistics on various supplies and weapons. Well, that was… odd. Before he could say anything, he felt a hand on his back. A Belgian patrol told him to come over with them, and though he thought of protesting at first, he soon changed his mind and obliged. 

They brought him over to the nearest sidewalk and told him to stand on the sidelines. 

“This was his favorite instrument, you know. A flute. I’m finding it difficult to understand how you blow it, though.” said the doctor after a minute or so, wanting to break the ice.

One of the soldiers couldn’t understand what the doctor was saying, but the other seemed to grasp him well enough.

“That’s a lute, I think. A flute looks more like, uhh… a very long cigar-cigarette, I mean.”

“Really? Hmph. You change one letter and you end up with an entire metamorphosis. Well, as a doctor, I think I shouldn’t be smoking, but so many of my comrades in the hospital do. Then again, I am new to this.”

“Well, every beginning is difficult. Have you just arrived?”

“Oh no, I’ve been here since 1915- “said the doctor, but couldn’t finish over the sound of the church bells that started ringing.

“Since 1915,” the soldier resumed after a minute of bell ringing “that’s very long to be new to your post.”

“Well, I’m not a doctor, you see. I came in as an infantry soldier after the gas attacks. I’ve only been doing this for a month now.”

“So you’re not a doctor at all?”

“No, sir. The-the uh, Top Command sent me to lift morale among soldiers thought to be having “shell shock” or that sort of made-up claptrap to, you know, get them back in the war rather than shooting them for mutiny.”

The soldier was stunned upon hearing that bit of information. Well, he looked stunned at least. Quickly thereafter his facial expression morphed into one of slight disgust, and then into one of confusion.

“Well, that-that’s good, I guess. What’s it like?”

“Well, the biggest shock of all is how so many are good pretenders. It’s absurd, you’ll try anything to get their spirits up for the big march on Berlin, and they will not give up the act! I have convinced some to drop it, they’ve admitted to feigning the whole thing, but so far the success rate is very low.”

The soldier could see that the doctor would talk for hours on end if he didn’t find a way to change the topic. At the very next moment, however, he felt as though the heavens had winked at him, when a British aeroplane swooped on down from the east. It was trying to fly in wild, acrobatic maneuvers- ones that always drew amazement from the townspeople.

Coinciding with the arrival of the aeroplane, several red, black and yellow flares were fired from the east side of town as well, adding to the jubilations. The townspeople began to slowly get out of their homes to see what still seemed like a miracle to them- a machine capable of carrying a human being in air. Most only watched in silence, though a few gave the occasional applause.

The aeroplane glided through the sky for about a quarter of an hour before there was a change in fireworks. In substitution of yellow, there began to appear white flares instead. The town quietly started to retreat back into its shell, and the Belgian patrols began to scatter. 

“Eindecker!” the soldier who didn’t speak English shouted, creating a wild frenzy on the street they were stationed on. The civilians who were out watching the twirls and twists of the great flying machine ran inside their homes and hid in their basements. The amount of houses that had been obliterated by shelling up to that point forced even twenty and thirty people into one house in some instances. Everyone went on high alert, with only the good doctor remaining as oblivious as ever.

“What is it? What did he say?”

“German plane coming.”

“What, now? What kind of plane? Goodness me, what a fiend, a villain, a rapscallion- “

“A Fokker.” the soldier who did speak English finally replied, almost like a light bulb that takes a few seconds to turn on after its switch has been flipped.

“Well, I wouldn’t be _that_ vulgar about it.”

“No no, Fokker is, uh- “said the soldier before being interrupted by what he was trying to illustrate. A German aeroplane, one noticeably faster than the British one, flew in from the east and gave chase to the latter. The British one may have been more cunning, but once its foe got close enough, it unleashed a volley of machine-gun fire that tore off his opponent’s propeller and brought him crashing down.

The shock of what happened did not stay long on the Belgian patrol; one of the soldiers went inside the British HQ where rocket flares were being fired, while the other stayed with the doctor.

The Eindecker took a U-turn and then turned to its right and went down the street where the crowd was. The closer it got to them, the lower it descended, until finally it forced the crowd to disperse in a state of panic and hovered over them. It then took a sharp left and started flying back toward German ground. 

The city of Ypres was slightly stupefied by what had just happened, but quickly shook it off, having gotten used to the round-the-clock mayhem and carnage of the war. If anything, they were far less worried than the town’s troops. German aeroplanes were not known to go on anything but reconnaissance flights outside of German aerial space, so this was either a rogue flight… or a prelude of things to come. Regardless of whether the die fell on one or six or somewhere in between, it was cast. 

The crowd that marched in all black was recovering well enough too, although some were calling out the name “George”. The good doctor said that it was him, and bid his Belgian friends adieu, saying he was needed elsewhere.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how I'll proceed going forward, I have some general outlines, but nothing that couldn't be scrapped. Any and all criticism is welcome. Well, not _any_ XD but you get the point.


End file.
